The Hare and the Tortoise
The Hare was, by any fair measure, the fastest creature in the meadow. His long legs could carry him from the pond to the hedgerow and back before most animals had finished their breakfasts. He was rightly proud of this gift — or he would have been right to be proud, if pride had not long since crossed the line into conceit.
He made rather a habit of reminding the Tortoise of her slowness. She was, after all, the slowest creature in the meadow, and the Hare felt that someone ought to acknowledge this regularly.
One morning — a bright, windless morning in late spring — the Tortoise grew tired of it.
"Very well," she said, pausing in her deliberate progress along the bank. "Let us settle this once and for all. I challenge you to a race: from here to the great oak at the summit of the east hill. We will have a judge and a proper start."
The Hare stared at her for a moment, and then laughed with such genuine delight that he had to sit down. The other animals gathered — they had all heard the Hare boast, and most of them were privately hoping for something interesting to happen.
The Fox agreed to act as judge.
They lined up. Fox said, "Go."
The Hare was gone in an instant — a white-grey blur that cleared the first meadow in the time it took the Tortoise to take three steps. Halfway up the hill he slowed to a canter, then to a walk, then stopped entirely on a sunny bank to consider his options. The Tortoise, he calculated, would need at least two hours to cover the same ground he had just covered in minutes. He had time for a nap. He had time for two naps. He settled into the warm grass and closed his eyes.
He did not mean to sleep so long.
The Tortoise walked steadily uphill, making no particular hurry of it, stopping for nothing. She had a plan: she intended simply to keep moving until the race was over. She had been walking all her life. She knew how.
She passed the sleeping Hare without waking him.
When the Hare's eyes opened, the sun had moved. He felt the first prick of unease, scrambled up, and ran — truly ran, flat out, the way he ran when a hawk was overhead. He was very fast.
He was not fast enough.
The Tortoise was sitting at the base of the great oak, eating a leaf with perfect composure, when he arrived.
The other animals cheered.
The Hare said nothing for a long while. Then: "You never stopped."
"No," said the Tortoise.
"Even when you were so far behind."
"Especially then," she said.